Initially installed 64-bit 12.10 virtual machine, no issues with install, never installed Guest Additions. Eventually deleted VM altogether because the GUI was painfully slow. I read that installing 12.04 would be an improvement.

Created new VDI, 50GB, fresh install of 12.04 32-bit. The initial boot, live CD style, is fine. Fully-functional display, mouse, keyboard, everything. After the install completes my issues start. It prompts me to remove install media (disc) and hit enter. I have no keyboard input at this point, so I just kill it and restart the VM.

It starts up with the classic "The system is running in low-graphics mode" error. I try to exit to console to do an apt-get update or install the Guest Additions, hoping to regain graphical support, but no CLI ever appears. It's just a black screen. To be clear, I'm also unable to boot from the live disc and "Try Ubuntu" rather than Install -- same low-graphics error.

Anyone know why I didn't experience this problem with my 12.10 install? I want to stick with 12.04 because it seems so much snappier in the GUI.

(Apologies if this is redundant -- so many of these VirtualBox issues with little variance.)